Non-Profits

Over the last week or so, your inbox and mailbox has been filling with requests for donations from non-profit organizations. Oxfam International, Doctors Without Borders, your local food bank, and homeless shelter all depend on year-end generosity to meet their budgets.

Connecticut’s Department of Developmental Services says it will cut 605 positions, as it seeks to privatize some of its functions. Commissioner Morna Murray wrote to the Office of Policy and Management this week saying the cuts are necessary to save the department $48.6 million in this fiscal year, and $69.3 million next year.

The executive director of the Beacon-based non-profit Hudson River Sloop Clearwater has resigned. His resignation comes just one week after Clearwater announced it was cancelling its annual music festival. Sloop Clearwater Executive Director Peter Gross has stepped down, citing “significant differences” of vision between himself and the organization. In a press release issued by Clearwater, he also expressed frustration with what he called “long-standing financial and structural challenges”...

Earlier this month, the Partnership for Strong Communities released its annual report on housing access and affordability in Connecticut. This hour, we find out what it tells us about local housing conditions -- including efforts to end homelessness and increase affordable housing supply across the state.

President Obama spoke with frustration last month at a press conference after the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. He asked if anybody really still believes we need more guns and fewer gun safety laws. Mass shootings are a big problem, but the majority of gun deaths are from homicide, accidental shootings, and suicide. The common denominator in all of them is easy access to guns. The CDC says the best way to decrease gun violence is to decrease the risk factors that make...

As a junior in high school, Michael Beale had a candy business that was pretty successful. But it wasn't exactly a school-sanctioned activity. "Let's just say it was off the school's books," Beale said, speaking at a recent financial literacy event in East Hartford. Eventually the school shut down his black market sweets operation, but it didn't stop his desire to learn more about personal finance.

Child development experts from Connecticut have created a system to help kids who have behavior problems get the help they need. The pilot program is now being rolled out in several states across the country.

Nicholas Kristof, columnist for The New York Times , and Sheryl WuDunn were the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism. Their latest book, A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity looks at people with great ideas who are making the world a better place and calls upon all of us to do our part.

When kids want to volunteer, they're often told what to do by adults. But the RiseUP Group in Hartford is a little different. The non-profit asks young people to create their own events and programs, to help them develop leadership skills and an appreciation for where they live.

The Department of Defense estimates nearly one in five Afghanistan and Iraq War veterans has a brain injury along with other medical problems like PTSD and chronic pain. Some of those veterans must rely on their wives or mothers to be their caregivers. But a nationwide study finds more than half of these 1.1 million caregivers are balancing their new roles without any support.

Scattered across Connecticut’s landscape are thousands of old mills and factories. Places like the Gardiner Hall Jr. Company in Willington and Whiting Mills in Winsted now stand as architectural relics from our rich, industrial past.

Alexander Calder, Swoon, BiP, and Claes Oldenburg are among the artists whose works make up the rich tapestry of outdoor art in New Haven. And if you’re not sure where they are?… There’s a web app for that.

A lot of interconnected things were happening in the 1990s, an oncologist and hematologist named Mitchell Gaynor discovered through a Tibetan monk, the so-called singing bowls and began incorporating them into the guided meditation and breathing work he did with his patients.